I got to clap along in the studio alongside Little Ant and Dec while Ant and Dec joined Take That in a medley. And I played a new game called Game of Phones where I relived my call-centre days. My auntie Kirsty and uncle Mark came along to that show. Now that was a good night in the Green Room; we just plonked ourselves in a corner with a bottle of Prosecco each and people-watched.
Another week I got to watch the Kaiser Chiefs in the End-of-the-Show Show. That reminds me, I had actually met Ricky a month before this as I’m friends with Grace, his fiancée, who is a stylist. Now she kindly invited me to come along to one of the Kaiser Chiefs shows at the O2 arena, which was amazing. I got a little bit tiddly and ended up with a few others including my friend Showbiz Liz (legend) having a house party at Grace and Ricky’s, leaving at about five in the morning. Now that is late for me, I like to be tucked up in bed by maximum 1 a.m. I am an absolute party pooper. Anyway the following day as I was hungover I ordered breakfast (Domino’s) and I got papped. I knew at that point when my pictures were making the actual paper just from ordering a pizza that it was a slow news day; I mean who gives a flying fuck that a then-twenty-six-year-old girl is hungover and ordering a large pepperoni with seven chicken wings, wedges and four cookies (I was very hungover – I needed carbs)? They’ll be papping me taking my bins out next (oh wait!).
My favourite ever episode was when I got to take part in Ant and Dec: the Musical. I loved the singing and dancing, and I got to play Ant and Dec’s mother (they were twins in this production) and myself alongside Peter Andre in the jungle scene. Never in a million years would I have thought my dreams would come true of sharing a stage with Ant and Dec and meeting the most amazing talented people who I had watched on television my whole life. I mean I even got to play Sling a Sausage with Peter Andre, a man whose poster I had on my wall as a teenager (it was an online game involving hot dogs and a wall with cut-outs, you dirty-minded people).
I am so bloody grateful that Ant and Dec and ITV believed in me so much to give me that opportunity. It was a life-changing experience and one I’ll treasure forever. Especially the grand finale in Walt Disney World Florida that was just magical and a real dream come true. See, I have always been a big supporter of the idea that you’re never too old to believe in magic:
‘You are never too old to dream a new dream.’
Chapter Twenty
BY GUV ’NOR IT ’S MARY BLEEDING POPPINS
In Disney’s 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, the beast is a multitude of animals. He is a composition of a lion’s mane, a gorilla’s brow, a buffalo’s beard and head, human’s eyes, a bear’s body, a wild boar’s tusks, and a wolf’s tail and legs.
Dwarf names that didn’t make the cut in Disney’s Snow White were: Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzy, Wheezy, Hickey, Baldy, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby, Shorty and Burpy.
Devices called Smellitizers can be found all over Disney parks. They emit scents in certain areas to match the surroundings, so the smell of baking cookies and vanilla is around Main Street, salty sea air surrounds the queue for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and there’s fresh citrus on Soarin’.
Disney has always been such a huge part of my life. My friends all say I live life through the eyes of a Disney princess. I always have and hopefully always will. I am constantly singing (in my best high-pitched, birds-tweeting-around-me, old-woman-knocking-on-my-door-offering-me-apples sort of singing voice), I waltz around the house and I always try to see the positive in every aspect of my life.
As a kid I would endlessly sit on the edge of my bed, eating Parma Violets and watching Beauty and the Beast. It was my favourite thing to do – I watched it that much it got to the point where I could honestly recite the whole script to you. I felt like I truly knew Belle when I watched her, sitting in my bed with my Groovy Chick duvet wrapped round me. That brunette lass from a small village, the one who felt like she just didn’t quite fit in, the one who people thought was slightly strange as she would constantly have her head in a book … I honestly felt like I could relate to Belle. We even had the same scraggly hair. (Up until Belle came along, Disney gave me unrealistic expectations of hair. I mean, whose hair looks like Ariel’s when you get out of a pool? And don’t even get me started on Princess Jasmine – come on, all that dry heat and humidity and not one bit of frizz? That’s not real life!)
I love everything about Beauty and the Beast. Especially its morals. It taught us girls
